Wormie the Prince
by Virodeil
Summary: Luke Skywalker, Janek Sunber: Each is not what the other expects, to say the least. And then more elements are thrown into this silly, alarming, intriguing-as-a-train-wreck mixture… It's just Janek's luck that Wormie Skywalker now has a fearsome back-up.
1. The Hapless Army Captain

Wormie the Prince  
By Rey

Story Notes:  
1. Experimental thing, not to be taken _too_ seriously.  
2. Random, meandering words, with average writing quality, pretty short too.  
3. First attempt at humour, somewhat of a meaningless fluff. Bear with me?  
4. Shifting point of views. Tell me what you think?

Part 1: The Hapless Army Captain

"Wormie?"

Janek "Tank" Sunber, an army captain now, looks like; but still the old Tank in a few aspects, seems like.

"Tank."

Luke despises that name, and the way Tank still looks down on him, in addition to looking down at him; but he does miss his peers from Tatooine, however unfriendly they were, or even still are.

"What are you doing here? You're too short to be a stormtrooper," the older, bigger young man remarks, condescendingly baffled.

Luke flushes and scowls. "Don't I know that," he gripes. "Can't I just visit with you? Just that"

He shrugs awkwardly, when Tank gapes, flabbergasted and incredulous.

"But… but this is a _military installation_! You can't just stroll in _here_ just to _visit with me_!"

Striking the older, bigger man into a stuttering near-silence is very, very satisfying, Luke must admit, regardless of what tool he does it with.

"No kidding." Luke shrugs again, grinning wrily. "How are you, Tank? Glad you're still alive, at least." His face crumples slightly, remembering Biggs, but then he tries for a bright smile. "Want some drink? Is there any cafetaria round here, anyway?"

Tank snorts, his arms akimbo. "Just for us insiders, Wormie. Don't tell me you can breeze into that one too."

Luke shrugs, again. "Suit yourself," he retorts. "If you show me, the drink's on me." But he truly hopes Tank will take the bate.

"You?" Tank turns even more baffled, and disbelieving. "Got lots of credits to burn lately, huh?" he wonders aloud.

"You can say that," Luke laughs, hopeful. "So?"

It's, at long last, Tank's turn to shrug and give back, "Suit yourself." And, given acquiescence, Luke eagerly obliges.

He tries to stay neutral, truly he does, when, outside the room, they are immediately flanked by a group of stormtroopers with the emblem of Vader's Fist: six to the front, four to either side, and six to the rear.

Tank looks positively… gobsmacked. So funny!

He can't ignore it though, for Tank's sake, when the beleaguered man gives him a sharp sidelong glance and hisses none too softly, "What's with the escort? It's Vader's Fist too! You're playing with me, Wormie? Don't involve me in your mad scheme!"

He shakes his head.

But for Janek "the Tank"'s part, he notices Luke's lurking wry lip-twitch…

He stops dead on the middle of the corridor and turns glowering eyes at the much-shorter man. "No, you explain this before I agree to go with you _anywhere_ ," he growls, shaking Luke's shoulders violently in the process.

The next moment, despite his being an _army_ captain and several pay grades above most of the bucketheads, his arms are roughly yanked away and behind his back in a painful twist, and six blasters set on "kill" are aimed on various parts of his person, even as six others corden Luke off from him and the rest take point on either side of the corridor.

"What's the meaning of this?" he squawks, his eyes wide with shock and then fear. "You… I… _Wormie_! What…?"

In answer, Luke _the Wormie_ instead addresses the _twenty_ elite soldiers as if in command of them – troops of the infamous _Vader's Fist_! – and despite the presence of their commander, who is actually one of those bucketheads who is guarding the short scrawny guy, with exasperation rather than consternation too, let alone fear. "Let him go, please. It's just new to him. It's new to me too." He looks… _rueful_ , even!

"We have our orders, sir," the commander of the elite bucketheads – the one standing closest to Luke, Janek notes – pipes in _blandly_.

He cannot believe it. _Twenty_ stormtrooper of an _elite commando group_ , answering to _Luke Wormie Skywalker_ , and one of the twenty is even _their commander_ , as if an escort team for planetary royalty from somewhere.

But even planetary royalty don't get the honours of being escorted by people of _Vader's Fist_! However they wish it to happen, those stuck-up idiots…

"Order? What order? From whom?" But none of the twenty answers him. And Luke… Luke just looks at him calmly, with eyes years older than his face and a soft sad – or wistful? – smile that just makes it more unnerving.

The hair on his head stands on end. "Luke?"


	2. The Hapless Customers

Wormie the Prince  
By Rey

Author's Notes: Please blame my distressed and empty state of mind post midterm exams for the following horror of horrors. I mean it.

Part 2: The Hapless Customers

"Wormie!"

But there is no threat of violent altercation, not anymore, so Luke just clutches as his newly-acquired – grudgingly at that, on the giver's part, for some reason – credit card, and strides on his not-so-long legs.

"Tank."

And perhaps by instinct of fifteen-year-long acquaintance, or perhaps by inaudible threats from his fearsome-but-bland-and-warm escort team, or perhaps by a blend of the two previous perhapses, his tank-like, prickly, moody sort-of friend trudges behind.

"Do you still wish to go to the cafetaria, sir?" The commander, striding – no, _walking_ , given their rather huge difference in height and weight – beside him, inquires… well, not fearsomely, but blandly and a little bit warmly.

Luke scrunches up his nose, half disapproving the commander's incidentally-projected uncharitable thoughts towards Tank. But maybe, it is Tank's fault too, for being prickly and moody, though right now Luke has to admit he envies Tank's… well, tank-like figure.

"I'm hungry; bored too," he confesses. And from behind him, he catches a shock of incredulous surprise from Tank. Well, it is certainly not his fault! He utterly _despises_ all the protocols that have been making him wake entirely too early, eat entirely too little, and dress up entirely too much, for _weeks_ already. This nice outing with him being just _himself_ his his bargained prize for being a semi-obedient mannequin for those terribly, torturously long weeks. And what a fortune that the commander plus his team of escorts _volunteered themselves for this excursion_ while he was thinking on how to support the "safety" part of his argument!

Thus, with the course and goal – or is it goal and course? – set up neatly and speedily, the medium-sized entourage make their way steadily through various corridors and rooms, on their way to a battle with plates and spoons and drinking glasses – and hopefully with _just_ those. Luke delightedly and cheerfully uses the chance of the impromptu – and _legitimate_ – tour to inquire to all his companions about… well, all and sundry, like a good, dutiful museum visitor that he is. Leia will approve, and that is also his ticket and shield in case other parties _do not_ ; she has such a _marvellous_ personality mixture between aggression and peace…

But for the hapless Janek Sunber, dragged along three-quarters reluctantly by the fearsome and all-too-known force of Vader's Fist people, who have apparently acquired some certification for babysitting the entirely-too-enthusiastic, entirely-too-cheerful, entirely-too blithe fool named Luke " _Wormie_ " Skywalker, in addition to being elit commandos, life is currently far from a semi-chipper thing that it was before that sinfully-innocent, cruelly-adorable grin and puppy-dog look darkened his sight once more after _years_ of only a-quarter-lamented absence.

And the size plus the jumble of his train of thoughts indicate his present state of mind perfectly, as the huge white-clad super meanies known throughout the galaxy talk nicely _and respectfully_ with the short slip of a boy semi-skipping along and _chatting adoringly back_ at them. The murmur of warmly-toned voices continually rush into his brain and right back out again, like oil-leaks on his last AT-AT's engine. This is not real; it _must be_.

And then, they figuratively hit upon Wormie's inexplicable goal: the cafetaria.

"Don't announce me, okay?" the little worm begs the commander. But what does the karking kriff he mean?! No announcement, _of course_! He needs not say that; stupid, silly Wormie. Who does he think he is? A _prince_? Hah! Not even a sleemo prince would dare do all these travesties and blasphemies, blithely at that.

A sleemo prince _cannoti_ do that.

But the far-fetched hypothetic prince is Wormie, who regularly got Biggs to secretly race in Beggar's Canyon, who regularly defended the ridiculous, upside-down notion that his dead dad must still be alive and is actually Anakin Skywalker, the nine-year-old _only_ human slave kid who won the Boonta Eve podracing decades ago, which would mean openly declaring himself the son of a slave in a community which both looks down on and usually avoids slaves in fear of turning into some by horrible chance…

sadly, the highly far-fetched notion does not seem like such a far-fetched notion anymore, when the kid says it. Wormie is ridiculous, but brave, but ridiculous, but brave… ah kriff!

Though, it seems, Wormie the old and Wormie the new are the same in one regard: Little to no flare for the sort of ruthless bargaining needed to survive on Tatooine, and also in the galaxy at large.

"All right, you may clear a table for us; but no violence, please, and _no announcement_."

After more rangling, it goes down to just "clearing the table" and "no announcement."

And in the end, even the "no announcement" part is dropped, on the proviso that a scout sees there is no table left.

A kriffing _scout_ for such a ludicrous, small thing, not even an _undercover mission_!

And what is the big deal about " _no announcement,_ " anyway?

End Notes: No, Luke isn't a pushover when it counts, I'd say. He just doesn't like arguments that much, when caving in to someone's demands won't really hurt him and will maintain peace. He's still green about politics too, maybe even greener than the commander of his escort group.


End file.
